The asterisk to "Active Learning"

There are more caveats and limitations in the "active learning" conversation than we often mention. Maybe it is time to mention them.

Here is what typically gets covered in an introductory faculty development program on active learning: Research demonstrates that “active learning” strategies improve student learning according to some measures and decrease failure rates when compared to “traditional lecture.” For this reason, it is advisable to include active learning in our courses, perhaps especially those courses in which a significant number of students do not receive passing grades. We can do this by choosing from a number of activities in which students directly engage with the material they are learning, rather than passively listening to a lecture. These include but are not limited to small-group exercises, student response system (clicker) questions, or peer-instruction.

Going Beyond the Scope

A meta-analysis published in 2014 by Scott Freeman and colleagues offered a flashy and exciting finding (and title) that has impacted a lot of higher ed faculty development, especially in STEM: “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.” On a personal note, I think the idea that “simply switching from lecturing to active learning can measurably improve student learning” is the one that made me want to work in faculty/educational development in the first place. I mention this to underscore that the points I make in this post are in effort to strengthen our conversation about active learning, rather than negate it. I remember one of the keynote speakers at the first POD conference I attended referencing this paper and its contention that if the studies analyzed had been medical trials “they may have been stopped for benefit—meaning that enrolling patients in the control condition might be discontinued because the treatment being tested was clearly more beneficial.” In this metaphor, the control condition is lecture, and the beneficial treatment is none other than active learning.

Image description: Students taking notes. In the foreground, a student holds a pen in their hand and a notebook and phone on their nap.

Hearing this as a beginning educational developer, I was eager to get involved in the work of helping instructors change their teaching to this evidence-based method. Upon reflection some years later, I understand that while this study and the way it has been interpreted does provide a succinct talking point for faculty developers, it does not really provide a step-by-step guide of how to achieve the purported benefits of active learning in a specific classroom. Furthermore, while active learning (broadly defined) seems to improve learning and decrease failure rates on average, that does not mean that it benefits all students, or all students equally.

There are a lot of directions I could take this “beyond the scope” post, and I am not sure I have space for all of them (do I need to do a beyond beyond the scope newsletter?). One important point that has been raised is that there isn’t a clear consensus on what active learning is. While many people picture a space with brightly colored, moveable furniture when they think of “active learning,” a fair number of researchers use “anything but traditional lecture” as a definition. Another question is whether the benefits of active learning accrue equally to all students. In this post, I want to focus on some research and commentary that has emerged to suggest that the axiom “active learning improves student outcomes” is not always true if students face barriers to participation in active learning. I am going to summarize a few of these perspectives that I am aware of, related to gender, race and language, and disability.

In an article entitled “When Active Learning is Inequitable: Women’s participation predicts gender inequities in mathematical performance” (2022) Daniel Reinholz and colleagues found that there was a gendered difference in how much an inquiry-oriented instructional approach (a type of active learning) improved student performance in two separate undergraduate mathematics courses. In short, there was an improvement in student performance in the active learning classes compared to the non-active learning classes, but only for men. The authors found that women’s success in the active learning classes was correlated with certain factors related to their actual participation, not just being in the active learning group. As the authors note, their study somewhat contradicts other studies that suggest active learning can help close the gender gap in some courses.

Jocelyn Rios (2024) studied the experiences of multilingual students of color in precalculus and calculus courses that employed what the author calls “talk-intensive” group activities. The article’s poignant title, “Positioned as a burden: Analyzing the participation of multilingual students of color in undergraduate mathematics courses that use groupwork,” previews some of the findings. In her interviews with students the author finds that some of the multilingual students in the study experienced social exclusion in the context of group work, being positioned in negative and deficit-based ways by their fellow students.¹

Logan Gin and colleagues highlight that the potential benefits or drawbacks of active learning to disabled students is not yet well-understood. In their 2020 article “Is Active Learning Accessible? Exploring the Process of Providing Accommodations to Students with Disabilities,” they interviewed 37 disability resource center professionals, and found that their students had experienced difficulties or barriers related to disability with common active learning activities like clicker questions, small group work, and interactive digital activities. Even though these disability professionals were familiar with many of the activities and the difficulties they cause, few instructors are aware of these issues. Other authors have noted various challenges disabled students face when participating in active learning activities in physics and STEM courses in general.

So what?

One of my reflections from thinking “beyond the scope” with the active learning conversation is that, as Reinholz and colleagues say explicitly, we need to resist the idea that there is some pedagogical silver bullet or “panacea,” whether that be active learning or something else. Each of the authors I cite here provides their own recommendations on how to mitigate the inequities that they found in the active learning environments of their studies, which are all valuable pieces of advice for teaching in general: If you are implementing active learning, come up with a plan to assess the effectiveness of your activities, paying specific attention to any inequities that may result. Use universal design principles and consider how people with disabilities will participate in activities. Provide scaffolding and structure for group activities, such that someone who is less comfortable speaking or leading the discussion feels like a part of the group and not “a burden.” Perhaps a necessary condition for the success of any active learning activity is deliberate attention to inclusion and accessibility, a point which doesn’t usually make the headlines about active learning.

I have written before about how I think educators should be modest when they make statements about how inclusive or equitable their teaching is. Even when we use the best available evidence, we may not know all of the potential barriers that may exist in a classroom (or may not be aware of research or other data that makes them clear). It is a common practice in research and academic writing to include a “limitations” or “future research needed” section, in which caveats or knowledge gaps are detailed. I think this would be a great standard feature for faculty development materials. I looked at a bunch of prominent teaching center web pages on active learning and, though this was not an exhaustive search, wasn’t able to find much mention of studies that complicate our understanding of active learning, and point to the issues that can arise for marginalized groups. They often do cite the research that suggests active learning improves outcomes for marginalized groups, arguably providing an incomplete picture of the available evidence. Since part of a faculty developer’s job is to translate research into usable ideas for instructors, I think it is incumbent upon us to integrate limitations into our materials. In my experience, there is a desire among faculty developers to appear credible, and that we can offer evidence-based strategies that “work.” But I think we should take a slightly wider perspective on “credibility,” which includes being honest about the complexities of the evidence base.

I hope you enjoyed this first “beyond the scope” post! I know I didn’t get to cover everything “beyond the scope” with active learning, and would be open to doing another post on other aspects of active learning and its place in faculty development. Please do let me know if you have ideas for future posts in the comments or by contacting me.

1. If you want to get a sense of the wider body of literature that discusses inequities in active learning, I recommend the introduction and conclusion sections of Rios’ article.